Fresh and wild: seaweed

For a nutritious treat, take the kids to the beach and start picking your own dulse and tangle

The Chinese supermarket is now the best place to find seaweed for eating. But it was not always so. "Dulse and tangle" was once the fishwife's cry on the streets of Edinburgh, when everyone ate seaweed gathered from Scottish beaches.

Seaweed is one of the richest sources of iron and other minerals, and it is possible to gather this nutritious food yourself. The best way is to take children to the beach and introduce them to the tastes and textures of Scottish seaweed.

Fiona Houston and Xa Milne did this last year, experimenting with recipes and enjoying a family adventure in the process. Then they told the whole story in a book, Seaweed and Eat It.

Dulse has become their favourite. Best picked between May and October, it grows from a single holdfast on rocks at low tide. Delicate and thin, it is dark brownish-red with purple tones. Not to